


Day 3: Smoke (mission failed)

by chiralchaos



Series: Turkstober 2020 [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Angst, Gen, Turkstober, turks smoking, which should have its own tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:55:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26941747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiralchaos/pseuds/chiralchaos
Summary: “There were hundreds of them. He never stood a chance,”. He couldn’t count the bodies from the helicopter, dozens and dozens of infantrymen scattered across the muddied land. It only got worse when they landed, stepping over dropped guns, cracked helmets, countless lifeless limbs. Their target had put up one hell of a fight.It's 3am in Midgar, and Tseng can't sleep. They should have gotten there first.
Series: Turkstober 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965964
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11
Collections: Turkstober 2020





	Day 3: Smoke (mission failed)

“You’re still up, huh,” Reno says, a statement more than a question. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his jacket and sees Tseng open his mouth to begin the reprimand - he cuts it off before he can start. “Don’t care,” he says simply; for all the dirty work they do in the name of Shinra he finds it ridiculous that they could still get in trouble for smoking in the office, and after the 48 hours they’ve had he frankly couldn’t care what punishments they could threaten him with. He can see though that whatever reprimand Tseng would have given was barely half-hearted. He offers the pack to his boss first, and Tseng takes one silently.

His boss stopped smoking a long time ago. Well technically he never really started, rather he found incredible relief in the habit whenever he got too stressed, whenever he needed a moment to stop and step back, ironically a moment just to breathe, and at this moment it felt like he hadn’t breathed for days. He knew Reno knew, which was exactly why he had turned up now otherwise unbeckoned - the redhead was chaotic, reckless to a fault, but he also had an incredible knack for knowing when someone needed him. Reno holds out a lighter and Tseng lights up, Reno doing the same with his own after. The silence between them weighs a tonne, and eventually Reno speaks first.

“We did everything we could, yo,” he says, eyes focused resolutely out the window, pretending to scan the 3am horizon while micromanaging every fraction of his own movement.

“And it wasn’t enough,” Tseng replies. He takes a drag and his eyes darken, tired, sombre. He too is staring forward stubbornly; Reno prefers it this way, quite sure he doesn’t want to meet his boss’s eyes.

“There were hundreds of them. He never stood a chance,”. He couldn’t count the bodies from the helicopter, dozens and dozens of infantrymen scattered across the muddied land. It only got worse when they landed, stepping over dropped guns, cracked helmets, countless lifeless limbs. Their target had put up one hell of a fight. He breathes out hard, trying to obscure the vision with exhaled smoke. “Even if we made it to him first, I don’t know what we would have done …”

“We would have done something,”. Tseng’s tone is final and Reno doesn’t know how to respond, opting instead to remain silent. He was the one who had to call it in, and at the time he hadn’t known the significance of the call. He knew they were hunting for two escaped subjects, a SOLDIER and an infantryman, he knew it was urgent, and he knew they had to reach them before the army did. He didn’t know who the SOLDIER was until he found him, what was left of him, bled out into the ground. They had been friends, and he had meant something more than that to Tseng too.

“We would have done something,”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 3 of Turkstober 2020, Smoke. They both know that Reno, Rude and Cissnei did their best, so the failure comes down to one person. That's how Tseng sees it anyway, and he's not going to listen to them telling him otherwise.
> 
> Crisis Core, guys, honestly.


End file.
